The fantasy sports game is risk-free for DraftKings as prize pools are a function of how much players have bet. Draft Kings is merely taking an administrative fee off the top. The Liberal government is rolling the dice on a bill to decriminalize one-game sports betting, five years after a previous attempt died in the Senate. Justice Minister David Lametti says the bill, tabled Thursday morning, will scrap Criminal Code provisions that ban gambling on single games of football, hockey and other sports to reclaim for casinos some of the $14 billion lost annually to the.

1. Single Game Sports Betting Ontario
2. Single Game Sports Betting Bill Canada
3. Sports Betting Websites

Long-awaited legislation to legalize single-game sports betting in Canada, which the federal government is expected to introduce Thursday, could be a huge boon to the gaming industry, especially in border communities like Windsor.

If passed, the legislation, which local politicians and labour leaders have advocated for more than a decade, is expected to bolster the competitiveness of Caesars Windsor and create up to 150 jobs.

In a news release late Tuesday night, Windsor-Tecumseh Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk announced that a bill to amend the Criminal Code to allow single-event sports betting will be introduced this week.

It also appeared on the House of Commons Notice Paper on Wednesday. The Notice Paper contains a list of all the items that may be brought forward on a particular sitting day and notices for upcoming items.

“This is about protecting the 2,500 jobs at Caesars Windsor and it’s about boosting a tourism sector that has been pummeled during COVID,” Kusmierczyk told the Star on Wednesday. “This is huge for our community. It’s something that has been a long time coming.”

The bill would amend a line in the Criminal Code that prohibits wagering on a single sports event. The amendment would allow provinces, which regulate gambling, to allow it. Ontario has said it supports single-game sports betting.

Neither Kusmierczyk nor any other MP will see the legislation until it’s tabled and presented in the House for first reading later this week, he said. It will likely go to a second reading next week before going to the committee stage, then the third reading.

Single Game Sports Betting Ontario

The bill must be passed by the House and Senate before becoming law. But little opposition is expected. Both the Conservatives and the NDP have supported single-game sports betting in the past.

New Tory leader Erin O’Toole expressed support for it during a visit to Windsor during the party’s leadership campaign last January. Saskatoon Conservative MP Kevin Waugh introduced a private member’s bill last February to allow it. Waugh took over from Windsor West MP Brian Masse of the NDP, who served notice in the House last December that he planned to table the legislation again, because Waugh’s slot for a private member’s bill was earlier than Masse’s.

Masse and Kusmierczyk, a government member, began preparing for another bid for a bill last December, just two months after Kusmierczyk was elected, giving this area its first and only government member in some time.

But private member’s bills are rarely successful.

“Because it’s a government bill now, this is a huge step, because in all likelihood this is going to get done,” Kusmierczyk said, acknowledging Masse’s unsuccessful years-long push for single-event sports betting. “I am confident this is going to get done.”

Kusmierczyk said the bill “is also about teamwork,” crediting the combined efforts of the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti, as well as Unifor Local 444 president Dave Cassidy, whose union represents casino workers, the Windsor Essex Chamber of Commerce, the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens and Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara.

“We’ve been pushing at every turn… and just really advocating hard,” Kusmierczyk said.

“I think this just goes to show how much we can accomplish here for our community when we all work together, when we’re all pushing in the same direction.”

But it’s too early to “do a victory lap,” Masse told the Star on Wednesday, referring to a similar private member’s bill by former Windsor-Tecumseh MP Joe Comartin of the NDP in 2012 that was passed by the House but stalled in the Senate for three years. It died when an election was called in 2015.

“I’ve already reached out to several Senators to talk about the bill,” Masse said.

“It’s going to take some time still for this to get done,” he said. “I’m hoping the government tables it, gets our first debate and we have a vote early in the new year. Then we have to move it to the Senate. This is by no means the end of the story.”

With a minority Parliament, he added, “there is no time to waste.”

But he supported the bill being tabled as a government bill instead of a private member’s bill. He felt he and Waugh had successfully put pressure on the government to act, he said.

“It is where we wanted to get the bill, and that’s in the government’s hands,” Masse said. “I didn’t care what government as long as it’s in the government’s hands. At the end of the day, that’s what matters. We just have to get across the finish line.”

Cassidy said Wednesday that single-sports betting could create up to 150 jobs in Windsor, from those who take the bets and the money to the statisticians to servers, cooks and cleaners.

“There are so many opportunities,” he said. “It brings business here. It attracts people. People love to go in and bet on games.”

“That’s needed,” he said, “because we don’t know what the casino will look like when times change and people start to come back to work and we get to open the casino more and more as this pandemic goes away.”

The casino could prepare for it now, while it’s closed because of the pandemic, he said.

“There’s an opportunity to potentially get that up and running so that when we do come back, we will have that extra part.”

The Canadian Gaming Association estimates that unregulated, illegal sports betting in Canada is worth $40 billion.

Along with losing ground to criminal enterprises, critics have said for years that the Canadian gaming industry has been kneecapped by its inability to offer something its direct competitors in Michigan, Ohio and New York now offer.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May 2018 allowed individual states to offer single-game betting. Michigan legalized it last December.

The major sports leagues in North America, including the NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL, initially opposed single-game betting but now all support it in the interests of grabbing a piece of the gambling pie.

Local Unifor leaders, Masse and Comartin have all pressed for the approval of single-game sports betting for years. They’ve called it a “no-brainer” because it wouldn’t cost anything, would create and protect jobs, protect consumers by regulating the industry and keep the revenue here.

In addition to job creation and being able to compete with the American single-sports betting market, Masse said the legislation will siphon money away from organized crime. That revenue, as well as funds spent through law enforcement to tackle illegal sports betting, would be able to go towards other things.

Related

Masse introduced a private member’s bill to legalize single-game sports betting in the Liberals’ first term in 2016, but the Liberals voted against it at second reading, before it could get to the committee stage.

The difference this time, he said, was that the Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Quebecois all supported Waugh’s bill during a debate several weeks ago.

“The government recognized that with the three opposition parties supporting this bill, it was going to pass,” he said.

Shortly after that, Cassidy also pressed Trudeau on the issue at a virtual meeting with local labour leaders and workers Nov. 12.

Trudeau reportedly told Cassidy, “We’re moving forward on this … I think you’ll be happy with the outcome.”

Yet another push

Canada has seen yet another push for the legalization of single-game sports betting. Politicians Brian Masse and Kevin Waugh co-sponsored a sports betting bill in the capital city of Ottawa.

Masse has since fully transferred control of the bill over to Waugh. He will continue to work closely with Waugh to lobby members from all the respective parties on the issue.

Two previous attempts by Masse to legalize sports betting were met with defeat in the legislature. However, with the United States seeing continued success since legalizing sports betting, the stakes for Canada have grown higher.

The benefits of legalization

Speaking about the bill, Waugh highlighted the significant size of the black market for sports betting that currently exists in Canada. He said each year, C$14bn (US$10.5bn) is gambled through these black market and offshore operators, with the money often going to criminal organizations.

In a tweet, he said the bill would allow Canadian provinces to “regulate [sports betting] properly and ensure that it is being managed in a safe and responsible way.”

Waugh believes a simple form of legalization could be a beneficial tool for governments to use resulting tax revenue to invest in local communities. He added:

I am hopeful that all members will support this common-sense change.”

A make-or-break motion

Introducing the bill, Masse emphasized that now is the right time to embrace sports betting in Canada. He noted that the Liberals avoided outwardly supporting the measure during the recent election.

“Now the music has run out”, he added, the issue will be debated in the legislature and voted on in the coming weeks. The various parties will have to decide once and for all which side they’re on.

now is the right time to embrace sports betting in Canada

Masse observed that having bipartisan Conservative and NDP members co-sponsoring a bill would offer the Canadian prime minister another opportunity to do something about its legislation.

Significant market share being lost

Canadian lawmakers detailed how market share is constantly being lost to the US market. Originally, they were hoping to attract US customers to legal sports betting. Now, the main issue will be for local casinos to retain their current customers.

The chances of success

With the Liberals being the controling party in Canada, they are in charge of the parliamentary agenda. However, a lottery system is in place for each parliamentary session that allows some opposition politicians to submit private members’ bills for debate.

Waugh got one of the precious early spots in this lottery. The issue will be debated in the legislature and then potentially voted on. There is confidence in the bill getting sufficient support and the law being altered shortly after.

The Canadian Gaming Association is also backing the change the bill would bring about.

Sports betting in Canada

Single Game Sports Betting Bill Canada

The gambling market in Canada is unique. Here, federal rules prohibit the likes of single-game sports bets. Instead, only parlay sports wagers are permitted. Each province is then in charge of the specific types of gambling that it allows under the federal government framework.

Sports Betting Websites

Parlay sports betting is not very popular as one can only place bets that have at least three selections. Canadian residents tend to turn to the black market and offshore operators to get their sports-betting fix.